U.S. Pat. No. 4,135,349 shows an adaptor for use with rotary crop shredders and with a vehicle for towing the shredders. The apparatus includes a center shredder, directly behind the vehicle and shredders on each side of the center one. A center coupling assembly makes connections to the towing vehicle and to the center shredder. Extending from the center coupling assembly to each side shredder is a beam. A side coupling assembly connects each side shredder to the corresponding beam. The positions of the side shredders along the beams can be adjusted for best alignment with planted crop rows. The coupling assemblies, by providing considerable freedom of motion for the shredders, enable the shredders to run over irregular ground. The apparatus includes lifting structure to raise the shredders for transport to and from a field.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,370,846 shows a gang mower having five or seven gangs which are raised and lowered by a single piston and cylinder. Lifting arms are fixed to an actuating shaft at each side of the machine and the piston and cylinder are connected between opposed lifting arms to rotate them in opposite directions. An equalizer link connected by cranks to the actuating shafts ensures that the shafts always rotate to equal extents in opposite directions. Chains are connected from the lifting arms to the mowers, the chains and lifting arms are configured so that lifting occurs sequentially, with some of the mowers being lifted before others. The sequential lifting spreads the load more evenly throughout the lifting sequence, thereby permitting a single piston and cylinder to lift all of the mowers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,538,400 shows a mower with a translatable main frame connectable to a towing vehicle. The towing vehicle has a rearwardly extending power take-off unit connected to a transmission on the main frame. One frame wing is hinged to one side of the main frame to pivot selectively to a lower cutting position and to an upper, inoperative position. Depending cutter carrying shafts are supported for rotation on the main frame and the wing frame and are driven through the transmission.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,854,112 shows a rotary mower with a front deck and a pair of wing decks. Each wing deck is supported by a lift arm assembly. When the deck is raised from its cutting position to its transport position it rotates so that the mower maintains a relatively low profile. The mower also includes a pair of breakaway assemblies which allow the wing decks to "break away" in the event they strike an immovable object.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,417 shows a rotary mower having a central section and end sections. The end sections are mounted to pivot upwardly and downwardly with respect to the central section. Each of the sections includes a plurality of rotary cutting units to provide a horizontal cutting plane across the width of the mower when the end sections are in a lowered mowing position. Each cutting unit is carried on a pneumatic tire wheel. An external drive rotates one of the wheels. The other wheels are mounted in frictional circumferential engagement with each other and the driven wheel so that all wheels are driven in the mowing position. The mower has an adjustable cutting height and is capable of being tilted upwardly as a unit to a vertical position so as to expose all cutting units and wheels for maintenance purposes.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,866,917 shows a self-propelled, triplex mower for golf course greens having two front wheels and a single rear wheel mounted symmetrically relative to a longitudinal center line of the mower. Three mower units are mounted to the mower frame to cut grass ahead of each of the wheels. These mower units are offset so as to be located non-symmetrically relative to the center line with the offset being a distance equal to at least one-half the width of the wheels. Because of this offset, it is necessary only to reverse the mower direction for performing consecutive perimeter and cross cutting operations on a green in order to have the wheels follow different paths.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,926,621 shows a towed mower attached by a hitch to a self propelled front mower. The front mower has its own forwardly positioned cutter unit. The towed mower has a centrally disposed frame segment mounting two side frame segments, each segment includes cutting blades that are supported in bat-wing fashion from the central frame segment. The swath cut in the grass by the front mower is straddled by the swaths cut by the blades of the side frame segments of the towed mower.